I wrote most of this pre-finale, and adjusted it to what happened. (aka added angst and sad) I have to credit askyourqueen for two posts, which helped me work through how to deal with this.

Regina's Dream

The feeling is, in many ways, familiar. She's standing, facing her enemy with a snarl on her face and bitterness in her heart. This time, though, there's also a distinct veil of panic, of an inability to catch her breath.

She notices with a start that Robin's there, and she calls to him, too softly at first for him to hear, his name a whisper on her lips. Then suddenly he's being pushed away from her, and her mother is taking his place before her. She hears a horse whinny and stomp, making her aware for the first time that they are in the stables.

"Love is weakness!" her mother snarls, and Regina, gasps, now thrown into complete panic.

"No!" she cries, as her mother puts a hand on Robin's chest. "No! Don't, please," she begs.

Cora's nose turns up in disgust. She turns back abruptly towards her daughter, and the thought passes through Regina's mind that Robin isn't struggling to get away.

"I don't need to," Cora bites out. "I never will. You'll destroy your own happiness; you always do. He can never love you! How could you think he would? Evil is made, my dear, and you, thanks to your own work, are evil."

She's calling Robin's name again, and he's ignoring her, as though she's invisible, doesn't exist, and Rumplestiltskin's voice echoes in her head, a taunting cackle, "Evil isn't born, dearie, dearie, dearie…"

Regina wakes with a start, her heart hammering in her chest, and she remembers that for the first night in weeks, it's in her chest.

In a world where fate has its way, a warm arm is wrapped around her stomach, and she's frozen beneath it, her heart still pounding, the panic blurring her vision. For a moment, she imagines herself rising silently and leaving him. But she's seen and heard enough this week to know that's exactly what her mother would want, and her pride and defiance of everything Cora stood for makes her stay and try to reign in her fear and her heartbeat.

She turns the arm that's on her stomach to run her fingers along the lion tattoo that in many ways is a more painful reminder than the dream—but it also reminds her that no matter how painful it is, she's making the right choice.

It startles her when she glances over and warm blue eyes stare into hers.

He doesn't say anything, just lets her breathe, and if he notices that the hand on his arm is shaking, he doesn't let on.

He lifts himself on one shoulder to press a kiss to her wrist, and frowns when he feels her pulse there. "You're heart's racing, Regina," he says in a low rumble, his voice rough with sleep.

He meets her eyes, sees the moisture of unshed tears shining in them, and remembers the same expression from their afternoon in front of the fireplace.

He engulfs her in an embrace, pulling her head into his neck and pressing her against his chest until there's hardly any space between them. One hand runs through her hair and strokes her back as her heart rate comes down. He doesn't ask her to explain.

"I though having my heart back in my body would feel better than this," she finally whispers.

He thinks of the moment she'd helped him push her heart back into place, of the look in her eyes that had made his head spin. He thinks of the way her fingers clenched around his as they made love in front of the fire this afternoon, of the way she'd gasped and pulled him closer, of the way her leg wrapped around his, of the passionate frenzy of the first time in front of the fireplace, and the comfortable and giggling ease when they moved to her bed for a second, of her moans as he touched and kissed every inch of her body, of his when she did the same. He frowns. "It did, didn't it? Feel better. At least…before."

After a moment, she nods into his shoulder.

"Good," she can feel his smirk against her collarbone, "I didn't think I was that bad in bed."

She swats his arm in retaliation and pulls back a little, but he sees with relief the smile growing on her face.

He presses slow and deliberate kisses to her forehead, her cheeks, and rests their foreheads together. His hand comes up to run through her hair again.

"I want to tell you," she whispers, "but I…"

She sighs and pulls out of their embrace, slipping out of bed. He watches her go, holds her hand until it's out of reach, but doesn't object. She pulls his shirt on as she goes, and he feels a rush of warmth that it comforts her to take something of him with her.

She looks out the window, her arms tight around her chest, and he wonders, not for the first time, how the world could have been so cruel to such an exquisite person.

"I don't think the dark, embittered corners of my heart have quite figured out what you see in them. What I've done—" She cuts herself off. "Don't say you don't care. You do. You should. You must. Sometimes I wonder if Daniel had seen me when I cast the curse…if he still could've love me. I don't think so. I'd become a monster." Her voice at first is angry and disgusted, then turns soft and cracking.

He aches to get up and hold her, but he knows her well enough to know it isn't the right way to help, at least not yet.

"Your dream?" he asks, because he can guess the gist, but she hasn't really explained.

She shakes her head, still facing away from him. "Don't worry about it." It would be too much, she thinks, to explain to him how much she fears that he'll realize he's living in a nightmare with her, wake up, and run far, far away from the Evil Queen.

Screw giving her space he thinks, and he walks to the window in two strides and pulls her into his arms. She fights half-heartedly, and then not at all. "I know who you were," he tells her, "I've known since I met you."

"Hearing stories is one thing; I remember them," she whispers into his chest. "You would hate me if you did, too."

"I wouldn't."

She shakes her head almost violently. "You would."

He lifts her head so that he can meet her eyes, his hands cupping her jaw. "I wouldn't."

She may not believe him now, he thinks, but in this world where fate has its way her soulmate swears to himself that he will tell her until she does. He strokes his thumb against her cheek. "You'll believe me, someday."

She shakes her head to disagree, but deep within her heart she thinks there are worse things than him trying to convince her, and maybe, just maybe, someday, he'll succeed.

This was how it was supposed to happen.

The way it really happens is this.

Regina's nightmare.

She wakes with a start, her heart hammering in her chest, and she remembers that for the first night in weeks, it's in her chest.

Her own arm is clenched around her stomach, and she's frozen, her heart pounding, the panic blurring her vision. And she remembers, remembers his face when he said Marian? remembers Roland running to his mama, remembers stumbling home from the diner and falling into bed. She looks at the clock. Three am. She's been asleep less than an hour. She turns over and feels the ghost of his arms holding her in this bed just this afternoon, hears the echoes of his moans as she ran her lips and teeth and tongue against the wrist with the lion tattoo, and he finally understood what it meant to them.

Her heartbeat absolutely refuses to slow, the terror of the dream and her grief contributing to its rapid cadence. His scent lingers on her sheets, and she slips out of bed in an attempt to avoid it. The Queen stares blankly out of the window, her arms tight around her chest. She only realizes she's been crying when a tear drops onto her wrist.

You will destroy your own happiness. He can never love you. The words deafen all other sounds, and she thinks the Cora of her dreams was right. He was always going to find out something so horrible about her past that he couldn't love her. Evil is made, and it made her a monster.

She likes to imagine Robin would disagree with her, would tell her she's not who she was, but he's not here, is he? And it's not just that he now never will be, but also that he's learned something about her past he'll never be able to forgive, he's experienced firsthand what the Evil Queen did to the lives of people like him, and if he wasn't already gone forever, that would've been the last nail in the proverbial coffin of their doomed relationship. He would've found out eventually, and, just as she's feared since the day she saw his tattoo in the cabin, he would've come to hate her. She's missed her chance with him, and she's spoiled too many second chances for this one to count.

It's a depressing thought, but she refuses to let tears fall at it. Because, she thinks, was there ever a world where it could've gone any other way?